


make a shadow

by palmviolet



Series: duprass [missing scenes] [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, F/M, Major Character Death (but questionable), Missing Scene, Spoilers, Survivors’ Guilt, somewhat hopeful ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 04:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19660102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmviolet/pseuds/palmviolet
Summary: she closes the gate, and for a moment the world is on fire.// missing scene in 3.08. contains huge spoilers.





	make a shadow

She closes the gate, and for a moment the world is on fire.

Then it’s all dark again, with ashes falling like rain, and the platform is empty. The platform is empty, and Hopper is gone.

She’s on the brink of hurling herself into the void with him when Murray grabs her by the shoulders and leads her away, shoves her into the vents and tells her to keep goddamn going, and she does. She does, because what else is she going to do?

The soldiers escort them out. They pass Owens on the way, looking nervous with brow furrowed, but he stops to greet Joyce. “Joyce, we got your message-“ Great, she’d think, if she was capable of thinking anymore. “You okay? Where’s Jim?”

Her stomach drops, again. It feels like she’s been standing on a precipice since this morning, when Alexei told them about the key, and the barrier, and the _gate-_ (Alexei shouldn’t have died like that.)

She can’t get the words out to tell him. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Murray shake his head, and Owens’ face drops. 

“You take care of yourself, Joyce, okay? And that kid. You take care of her too.”

His words reach her through a haze, like she’s underwater. El- God- _El-_

Murray seems to sense the panic beginning to shake in her frame and he takes her by the shoulder, steering her past the men. “Joyce, breathe,” he mutters in his nasal, abrasive voice. Words that sound wrong in his mouth. Words meant for a taller, stronger frame, a deeper baritone.

“I’m fine,” she gasps out, and wrenches away from him. They’ve made it to the elevator now and she doesn’t look at him as they climb the floors. Tries to still the shaking in her hands, tries to halt the sting of tears. Tries so desperately to breathe.

And then they’re outside, and there are lights flashing blue and red and men in khaki shouting and swarming and the parking lot is a mess, like a battle took place-

Will. _Oh my god,_ what if Will didn’t get away? What if he- what if he never made it out? What if the monster got him too- what if Hopper-

She lets out a choked sob.

What if Hopper died for nothing? What if it got all the kids, because she was too goddamn slow- because they did that stupid fucking countdown-

She wanders the parking lot desperately, leaving Murray far behind. She has to find them- any of them, but El and Will and Jonathan especially. God, what if-

She can’t lose her kids too. Not her kids, please, not them too-

But then she sees him. Will. He’s sitting on the end of an ambulance, a blanket draped around his shoulders, but when he sees her he stands and it falls to the floor. _Mom_ , he mouths, and then he’s running.

He pauses before he hugs her, like he’s afraid she might break. Maybe she will. Physically - her ribs are aching with increasing persistence, and her head is pounding like that Russian guy hit her too hard - and emotionally too.

But then his arms come up and she folds into him. He’s taller than her now, so she can cling to him like a goddamn lifeline- and she does. She sobs into his shoulder, some horrible combination of ‘thank god’ and ‘I’m sorry’ that she’s sure he can’t understand. She’s not sure she does either - what is she sorry for?

(So goddamn much.)

But when she opens her eyes, she sees El. She sees El, face already crumpling, already realising with that wonderful emotional intuition that _something happened,_ and she realises why she’s sorry.

God- if she’d been quicker- if she’d gone for the gun on the floor instead of her belt for the switch- if she’d skipped straight to zero on that first fateful countdown-

And El is all alone, because she fucked up. 

She leaves her son’s embrace and hurries forward, hesitating just before she reaches El. The girl looks awful - bloodied, exhausted, limping horribly - but it all pales in comparison to the tears in her eyes. 

Joyce did this to her.

Joyce flipped the switches that killed her dad.

She manages to swallow all this in the girl’s embrace, holds her tight as she cries. She cries and Joyce holds her and strokes her hair and tries to stave off the awful guilt. Still she finds herself murmuring, repeating, voice feverish - “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

El doesn’t respond. She weeps into her shoulder, into the thick starched material of her coat; Joyce lets her. Lets her, because there’s nothing else she can do. She can’t bring Hopper back- she can’t- she can’t undo those precious fucking seconds wasted- gone-

The panic curls up again, tight in her throat. Her hands shake in El’s hair and the girl must notice, because she pulls back.

“Joyce?” she whispers.

Joyce can’t answer. She just shakes her head, more tears forming in her eyes and dripping down her cheeks. God- El- and Hopper- 

Her breathing is rapid and harsh and _painful,_ it hurts like hell-

And when she focuses on the pain, it hits her all at once. Sharp, stabbing agony in the bottom of her chest, so sharp it makes her double over.

“Joyce,” El repeats, voice still thick with tears. “Joyce- what’s wrong-“ Her tone is panicked, like she thinks she’s about to lose her too-

Joyce can only gasp with pain. It’s been there for a while, she realises, only she hasn’t noticed it - has been too caught up in guilt and grief and raw adrenaline. But now it’s unbearable, unignorable- on instinct she clasps her arm over her middle and can’t help the cry that escapes her lips.

And then Will and Jonathan are both there, crowding around her. She flinches from all of them, partly through pain and partly because she doesn’t think she deserves them.

And then they’re guiding her over to the paramedics and she’s hissing in pain and all she can say is _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ over and over again. Maybe her heart’s broken, literally. Maybe the pain of killing - _killing -_ Hop just shattered it in two.

Hop, the man who was always there. There in high school, sharing smokes and quips and stories under the steps, running hand in hand from teachers and hall monitors. There right before Lonnie left, when he hurt her family the worst. There when Will was gone, and there when he was here but not himself. Hopper was always fucking there- and how does she repay him-

Maybe she’s cursed. Maybe she’s goddamn freaking cursed, because she said yes, didn’t she? She said yes to Enzo’s, seven, him picking her up. She said yes and he died.

Sometimes- it feels like- all the men she’s ever loved have gone away.

Lonnie treated her like shit but she did love him once, and then he left. Bob- Bob fucking died, and she _still_ can’t deal with that, let alone Hopper-

He once told her after a few whiskeys that he felt like he was a black hole. She smiled comfortingly and slipped her hand over his, looking him deep in the eyes - _you’re not a black hole_. Well, maybe there is a black hole, but it’s been her all along. Lonnie- Will- Bob- Hopper-

“Fractured ribs,” the paramedic is saying. She can barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. “She’s in shock.”

Jonathan drapes a blanket over her shoulders as she stares into the distance. Then he crouches down before her, takes her hands in his. “Mom- can you tell me what happened?”

“Friday,” she whispers. He frowns and she meets his eyes. “Hopper- I said Friday- and now he’s dead.”

She hears El let out a cry at her words. _He’s dead._ So literal. So unequivocal. She has to look after the girl, she can’t go to pieces- and yet how can she not-

“But what happened? How are you hurt?”

She shakes her head. Does it matter? Does it really goddamn matter? “The- the Russian guy, the massive psychopath who was following us for days-“

 _Arnold Schwarzenegger._ God, the next time she sees Larry Kline she’s gonna do more than kick him in the dick. He’ll be lucky if she doesn’t take that handgun of Nancy’s-

“Hop killed him, but then he was trapped- and God- Dustin, he kept yelling to close the gate-“ Fresh tears spring to her eyes. “So I closed it.”

Jonathan’s looking at her like he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand, and maybe that’s good but she needs someone, anyone to understand- they’re all looking at her with pity in their eyes but she doesn’t deserve it, any of it, because she killed him-

“Joyce!” 

It’s Murray. She blinks, looks up, as her children close ranks around her. 

“Murray- what-“

“What did you see?” he asks, and his voice is strange and intense. “I need you to tell me what you saw.”

“What? When?”

“When you closed it.”

She shudders. She didn’t see anything, that’s the point. She couldn’t even face what she’d done- couldn’t even watch as she murdered Hop-

“Did you see him die?”

“What the hell, asshole?” Jonathan cuts in, glaring at him. “Why don’t you just leave her alone?”

Murray ignores him. “Joyce- Joyce, I think- I think something’s happened here. I don’t think it’s all as simple as it seems.”

She shakes her head, even as she yearns for it to be true. Is he really- is he seriously- he can’t be- 

Hopper’s dead. No one could survive that blast.

But the gate was open right there-

And she closed her eyes-

And she couldn’t look properly, because then the Russians came-

Hopper’s dead. Isn’t he?

El’s still sobbing, Jonathan’s on his feet with hackles raised and Will’s got his head in his hands, but Murray is defiant. He believes he’s right. And Joyce is still in agony, her broken ribs screaming at her even as she rises and nods-

Okay. So Hopper’s dead. Or maybe he’s not, but whatever-

She can hope.

**Author's Note:**

> im so sorry lol but i needed to write this. at least i made it kind of hopeful at the end.
> 
> joyce’s fractured ribs are from when the russian guy threw her against the console and basically knocked her out for a good few minutes. yikes. tbh i wanted to show that actually there are consequences to your characters being involved in massive action sequences lol
> 
> probably gonna write a few more of these while i work on my continuing longfic from before and also some new post s3/alternate s3 ones, and also a jopper highschool fic!! so look forward to all of that lol
> 
> let me know what you think!!


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